Safeway, Foodland coming to Wailuku

April 27, 2013

In the next several months, Safeway will be opening at the Maui Lani Center, and by early next year Foodland should be open at the Kehalani Village Center.

Construction is surging ahead at the new Safeway across from Baldwin High School along Kaahumanu Avenue as workers prepare for a target opening date of Aug. 30.

The store will be 59,000 square feet and feature the company's "lifestyle" format, which will include a deli and bakery, proprietary brands, a fresh seafood section, a floral section, a pharmacy and a Starbucks coffee counter, said Keith Turner, director of public and government affairs for Safeway.

Article Photos

Work on the new Wailuku Safeway store continued last week. The market going up across Kaahumanu Avenue from Baldwin High School and below Maui Memorial Medical Center is expected to open at the end of August.

The Maui News / MATTHEW THAYER photo

The store will employ 140 workers.

At the Kehalani Village Center in Wailuku, workers are conducting underground work and in the coming weeks will pour a concrete slab for the Foodland store that will sit on the west side of the current Longs Drugs, said Sheryl Toda, spokeswoman for Foodland.

The store, which is bordered by Honoapiilani Highway to the west and Kuikahi Drive to the south, will open in early 2014, she said. It will include an in-store American Savings Bank, full-service seafood, meat, deli, bakery, produce and floral departments, along with an R. Field Wine Co.

Adjacent to the store will be The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf store, which will feature a drive-through window.

The 35,000-square-foot store will be larger than other Foodlands on Maui and will employ about 85 workers, Toda said. She added that Foodland will be hiring all new employees for the store.

Safeway and Foodland are part of up-and-coming retail centers tied to nearby residential developments.

Foodland is an anchor tenant of the Kehalani Village Center, a $50 million, 200,000-square-foot project by developer Stanford Carr.

The Maui Lani Center will be 105,000 square feet with retail, restaurant and office space and 550 parking stalls. It is being developed by HRT Ltd., a subsidiary of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Trust. A representative of HRT could not be reached for comment.

The center has been a point of contention for nearby residents, some of whom did not want to see stores and extra traffic near their homes. There also has been a legal challenge regarding Native Hawaiian burials in the area.

Wailuku resident Clare Apana has said that the developers of the 13-acre project have not taken adequate steps to safeguard burials in the sand dunes on the property. Mediation between Apana and HRT last year resolved the burials issue with a settlement reached between the parties, said Apana's attorney, Lance Collins.

He said the developer will notify Apana regarding anything having to do with burials on the site, and the two parties will work together to protect the burials. The burials also will be recorded on property ownership documents, Collins said.

The State Historic Preservation Division on Maui had approved plans in 2011 by the developer for dealing with previously known and identified or inadvertent discoveries of burials.

The Safeway store will be the company's fourth on the island.

The new Foodland store will be the fifth Foodland on the island, although the family of stores also includes Sack N Save Wailuku and Foodland Farms Lahaina.